A river is a unit, but its uses are many, and with our present knowledge there can be no excuse for sacrificing one use to another if both can be subserved.
A progressive plan for the development of our waterways is essential.
Pending the completion of that plan, which should neither be weakened by excessive haste nor drowned in excessive deliberation, work should proceed at once on some of the greater projects which we know already will be essential under any plan that may be devised.

First and foremost of these by unanimous consent is the improvement of the Mississippi River.

A comprehensive and progressive plan of the kind we need can be made in one way only, and that is by a commission of the best men in the United States appointed directly by the President of the United States.
Such a plan must consider every use to which our rivers can be put, and every means available for their control.

It must deal with such great questions as the relation of the States and the Nation in the construction and control of the work, and with terminals and the coordination of rail and river transportation.

The engineering difficulties may be larger than any we have yet solved.